Pressure sensitive explosive devices buried in or on the ground, such as land mines, ground surface Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) detonators, and the like, may be cleared by vehicles equipped with a mine flail. A typical mine flail includes a rotating drum adorned with metal chains. The chains impact the ground with substantial force as the drum spins, causing land mines to detonate. Mine flails may have many sizes, e.g., from large tank-mounted devices to smaller devices attached to robots. However, conventional small, robot-mounted devices may have difficulty generating enough force to guarantee mine detonation.
Another conventional approach to clearing and/or detonating the pressure sensitive explosive devices described above may be to use heavy ground rollers. As the name implies, these devices typically include of one or more rolling mass(es) which impart a ground pressure as they are moved across terrain of interest for clearing. The ground pressures from the rollers are designed to be sufficiently high so as to detonate the mines, IEDs, detonators and similar devices in the path. However, achieving sufficient pressures may be difficult and may often require extremely massive roller systems.